Gingerbread Shuttles
by Laura Schiller
Summary: A project for the Borg children becomes a learning experience for the adults as well. Pre-C/7. Requested by Alaster Boneman.


Gingerbread Shuttles

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Voyager_

Copyright: Paramount

Chakotay came away from his private dinner with Kathryn feeling hungrier than before.

It wasn't the first time this had happened. Take one stubbornly faulty replicator, one stressed-out captain who didn't care what she ate as long as her coffee was strong enough, and one tired first officer. Flavor with uneven power dynamics and tension both personal and professional, sprinkle with memories of mutiny and mind control, and simmer over a slow fire for six years until thoroughly overcooked.

Result: one charred eggplant lasagna, one peanut butter sandwich, and half an hour of awkward silence. At least his own replicator was working. He'd eat when he got back to his quarters.

Just as he thought this, however, a delicious smell made him stop in his tracks. Something was baking. Something sweet and spicy and reminiscent of December nights in San Francisco: freezing rain, crowded coffee shops, red and green light strings, friendship and laughter. He and his fellow cadets at Starfleet Academy had found the time, even the middle of exam season, to get together in the dormitory kitchens and make … gingerbread?

It was coming from the mess hall.

Chakotay walked in without thinking – and found himself surrounded by friendly chaos.

The tables had been pushed together, covered in plastic cloths, and generously splattered with dough, eggshells and icing. Bowls of marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate drops and gummy bears, bags of flour and sugar, cartons of eggs and stood ready, some almost empty, some overflowing. The room was full of children ranging from six to sixteen: two girls giggling and chasing each other around the tables, two boys fencing with spatulas, an older boy methodically wiping up spilled flour, and in the middle of it all –

"Construction material is ready. You may begin."

Seven of Nine with flyaway hair and sparkling eyes, decked out in one of Neelix's multicolored aprons, pulling a tray of fresh gingerbread out of the oven. The Borg children and Naomi ran up to her like ducklings to their mother (except for Icheb, who kept a polite distance), all talking at top speed about the projects they were planning.

"I'm gonna build a cube - "

"No, no, that's too easy, we should - "

"Can we use the caramelizer torch?"

"I want mine to be the biggest!"

"Slow down, my dears," said Neelix, smiling like a Talaxian Santa Claus as he pulled out a second, even larger tray. "No need to rush, there's plenty for everyone. Oh, hello there, Commander! Won't you join us?"

"If you're sure I'm not intruding … "

"Oh, nonsense!" Neelix caught his friend and sometime counselor by the arm and tugged him into the galley. "The more the merrier, isn't that right, Seven?"

Seven raised an eyebrow at the idiom, but gave Chakotay her own form of welcome anyway: "Commander, you are not dressed for this activity. Turn around." Before he could blink, she had whisked an apron over his head and tied the strings together in the back.

He looked down at the turquoise fabric with pink and gold polka dots and grinned. "Thanks. So, what are we building here? _Voyager_ could use some extra shuttlecraft."

One of the twin boys looked confused at hearing that, perhaps taking the joke literally, but Naomi whispered something in his ear and he brightened up in understanding.

"Each child chooses what to build," said Seven. "They are practicing their spatial reasoning skills and exercising their creativity. You may supervise."

She'd really listened to him, Chakotay realized, unexpectedly touched. He remembered how overwhelmed she'd been at first by looking after the children, and how she'd almost given up before he convinced her that letting the children express themselves would help. He didn't consider himself an expert in child care by any means (it had been far too long since he'd played with his sister's sons at home on Dorvan), but in this case, his advice seemed to be working.

"It was my idea!" Naomi announced, flourishing her pastry-cutter.

"Good for you, Assistant Wildman." Chakotay smiled down at her and pulled a glob of icing out of her strawberry-blond hair. "That's the kind of initiative we like to see in Starfleet."

Naomi beamed as if she'd just received a medal. "Watch me, Commander. I'm gonna design a new kind of shuttlecraft, like the _Delta Flyer_ or even better. And you'll help me, right, Acting Cadet Icheb?"

"Of course," said Icheb earnestly, though with a smile at the corners of his eyes. "Every shuttlecraft requires at least two officers to crew it."

A tug on the corner of his apron led Chakotay further down the table, where Mezoti was standing over her station with rolled-up sleeves and an imperious frown. "Commander, I require assistance. I want to build a Norcadian beehive, which is spherical, but I can't get these to bend."

She picked up a sheet of gingerbread and demonstrated the problem, making it crumble into several pieces. She growled and shook the crumbs off her latex-gloved hands.

"Maybe you could cut them into smaller segments and make a polyhedron instead?"

"Sounds boring."

"But think of how amazingly intricate it will be when it's finished – a whole made up of many parts, just like the real hives. Imagine how much work they must be for the insects to build."

Mezoti's frown became thoughtful instead. She began carving lines into another sheet with the tip of her pastry-cutter, murmuring calculations under her breath. He waited for a few more seconds, but as she seemed to have forgotten his existence – the Borg work ethic really was remarkable - he wandered over the next table, where the twins were standing with crossed arms and shooting each other identical glares.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" said Chakotay, using his Maquis commander voice to get their attention.

They broke their glaring contest and turned to face him in uncanny unison. "He won't listen to me!" they chorused.

"What seems to be the problem?" asked Chakotay.

"Azan wants to build our Borg cube - "

" – but Rebi wants to build our old house on Wysantu." They pointed accusatory fingers at each other, which at least helped Chakotay to tell them apart.

"Can't you each make something different?"

Judging by the appalled looks on their faces, he might as well have asked them to commit murder.

"We're _identical,"_ said Azan (on the left, in the red sweater), rolling his eyes in profound contempt at Chakotay's cluelessness. "We function as a unit. We always have."

"Only because you're the stronger telepath," muttered Rebi (on the right, in the brown sweater), earning him a sour look from his brother. "I want us to use my idea for once."

Chakotay hesitated. As First Officer, he was used to dealing with colleagues who couldn't work together. The easiest solution was usually to separate them. But these weren't Starfleet or even Maquis crewmen, they were children, and ex-Borg children at that, with a painful history he knew almost nothing about. What if he said something wrong?

He caught Seven's eye over the tops of the boys' heads, silently signaling for help. Of all their shipmates who complained about her being out of touch with her humanity (such as Tom or B'Elanna), it was a pity none of them could see how quickly she came over.

Azan and Rebi voiced their grievance a second time. She listened to them as gravely as the Captain did to her senior officers, and considered her answer for a long while before speaking.

"Azan," she said. "Just because you have always done something, it does not follow that you must always do so in the future."

Azan shook his head in confusion. "But in the Collective, we never broke protocol."

"Even the Collective changes as necessary in the pursuit of perfection."

She tipped both boys' faces up with her hands under their chins so she could meet their eyes and lowered her voice, speaking for their (and Chakotay's) ears alone. "You will always be brothers. That will not change. Your differences do not have to divide you. They can also enrich the life you share."

Azan and Rebi shared another silent telepathic exchange. This time, it was the dominant twin Azan who looked away first.

"I'm going to help Mezoti with her beehive," said Azan. "Is that acceptable?"

"If you ask her first and she agrees, certainly," said Seven. "Rebi, what about you?"

"I still want to build Grandmother's house," said Rebi, cutting out a gingerbread wall with quiet determination. "With the _wyomi_ flowers out front. And I want to do it by myself."

"Very well."

Chakotay kept pace with Seven as she took a few steps back, giving Rebi space to work and keeping an eye on the room as a whole. Azan was approaching Mezoti's table with a degree of caution that made Chakotay smile, especially when the impulsive girl squeezed her tube of icing too hard and it squirted over them both. Neelix had picked up Naomi and Icheb's half-finished shuttlecraft and was swooping it through the air, demonstrating some wild piloting maneuver from his junk-trading days, while the two young would-be Starfleet officers watched with laughing apprehension in case of a crash.

"Don't worry," the Talaxian said. "It's a strong little ship, this. If the base structure is solid, the rest won't be a problem."

"We believe you, Mr. Neelix," said Icheb. "Now please put it down!"

It was a sight to behold, but Chakotay's eyes kept wandering back to Seven. She was smiling, her face soft and unguarded as she watched her foster-children play. _She'd make a good mother someday_ , he thought. _I can't believe how much she's changed since she first came on board …_

His thought process ran up against a realization that chilled him to the bone. He had fought with the Captain, pleaded with her, not to ally with the Borg. If he'd had his way, this vibrant young woman and these thriving children would have lived and died as drones.

He hadn't trusted her. He'd been so sure she would betray them. (Seska, Riley, Valerie, hadn't they all turned traitor in one way or another?) But she'd proven him wrong at every turn. Instead of dragging _Voyager_ with her into the Collective, here she was saving others from the life she had escaped.

 _I've been such an idiot._

"Is something wrong, Commander?" Seven asked, with an inquiring lift of her ocular implant.

"Oh, no. It's just … you're really good with all of this." Chakotay waved a hand to indicate all the joyful disorder of the room. "I'm … impressed."

"It was Naomi's idea, and Mr. Neelix assisted with preparation." Still, she stood a little taller, as if Chakotay's compliment did not leave her wholly indifferent. "I would have never thought of this on my own … but I must admit, it has been most enjoyable."

"Still, I heard the way you talked to the twins. That was all you."

"Teaching them to grow as individuals is a constant struggle, given that I have barely grasped the concept myself. If anything, they should be teaching me."

The wry, affectionate tone of her voice was familiar to him, both from his years at Starfleet and his childhood at home, eavesdropping on his parents as they discussed how to handle their difficult son.

"Every parent feels that way … and every senior officer too, I can tell you. If you're worried about doing the right thing, it means you're doing something right already."

"Thank you, Commander." Her blue eyes gazed up steadily into his. "I … I value your support."

He lost track of how long he'd been looking at her – too long, surely, but she hadn't looked away – when the high, proud voice of a little girl broke the spell.

"Construction complete," announced Mezoti, standing next to Azan with ramrod-straight posture behind their creation.

To Chakotay's eyes, the beehive looked rather gruesome, like something out of Tom Paris' horror movies. It was more of a lump than a polyhedron, held together precariously with splatters of red icing, and they'd even replicated some plastic Norcadian bees – thumb-sized creatures with neon-green fur and bulging compound eyes - to stick along the sides. But the pride of the young artists was obvious, and he wouldn't have criticized them for the world.

"Us too!" said Naomi, taking Icheb's hand and raising it as high in the air as she could. The _Wildman-_ class shuttlecraft looked very realistic, complete with a glittery blue warp trail and even windows made of sugar glass. Chakotay could see Naomi's drive and Icheb's precision in every centimeter; he wouldn't be surprised if those two took over command of _Voyager_ in a few decades.

Rebi held out his little gingerbread cottage with a self-conscious shrug. He and Azan caught eyes across the tables and nodded to each other. "Good work," they chorused.

His was the smallest and simplest offering, with four walls, a flat roof covered in peppermint tiles, and a cluster of red and white lollipops in the front to representflowers. But it touched Chakotay's heart to think that the boy had held on to the memory of his grandmother's house all through assimilation, the struggle for survival on the derelict cube, and the months of adjustment on _Voyager_. He hoped that Rebi and his brother would have the chance to see that cottage again.

"Is there a prize?" Mezoti asked eagerly.

"Because if there is, we'll totally win," said Naomi.

"That's not fair!" the Borg girl shot back. "Icheb's mental and physical growth is years ahead of ours - "

"There is no prize." Seven's authoritative voice cut off the argument before it could begin. "This is not a competition. All five of you have demonstrated skill and ingenuity, and you all deserve a reward."

"Hot chocolate and gingerbread for all!" Neelix emerged from the back of the galley with a steaming pot in one hand and a holoimager in the other. "But first, everybody gather 'round for pictures. It would be a shame to let these works of art go undocumented, don't you think?"

"Fire at will, morale officer," said Chakotay.

Neelix took pictures of each project separately, then one of all three, with the children clustered around them and the adults standing in the back. If the Captain were here, Chakotay would have had no compunction putting an arm around her for the picture (or perhaps he would, given their history), but he knew that Seven was protective of her personal space. He made sure to stand a few steps away.

"Whoops! Sorry, Commander, I just cut off your head," said the morale officer, making Mezoti giggle at the morbid turn of phrase. "You and Seven are just so tall, it's hard to fit you both in the frame. Get in a bit closer, won't you? Don't be shy."

It was Seven who placed her cybernetic hand on his left shoulder blade – high enough to be polite, but low enough to be invisible to the camera. Suddenly she was close enough that he could smell the gingerbread she had been baking. A tiny jolt of electricity ran through him, one he hadn't felt in a long time.

What was it she'd said to the twins earlier? Just because something had always been done, that didn't make it the right thing to do. He thought of Kathryn and her dodgy replicator, which they could have fixed years ago if only they'd made it more of a priority - but they hadn't. Maybe it was time to break the pattern. Maybe it was time to start something new …

 _I can't be falling for her. Not Seven of Nine. Another colleague, the Captain's protégée, half my age and raised by the Borg? Spirits help me._

But at the same time, he decided to ask Neelix for a copy of this picture the first chance he got.


End file.
